❗️Quds Force commander Brigadier General Esmail Qaani 'is fine' – Tasnim News Gency, citing Quds Force

Earlier Western media reported rumours that Qaani was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut last Friday.

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❗️ Russian troops liberated the settlement of Grodovka in the Donetsk People's Republic, the Defense Ministry reported.

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❗️The Russian Armed Forces destroyed an Israeli-made RADA RPS-42 multifunctional radar station;

🇷🇺🪖More statements from the Russian MoD daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:    

◻️ The Russian Armed Forces struck the infrastructure of two military airfields, ammunition depots, and military-technical equipment of Ukraine;

◻️ Units of the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup are operating in the Dnepropetrovsk region, hitting Ukrainian militants in the area of Raipol;

◻️ The Russian Yuzhnaya Battlegroup continued advancing deeper into enemy defenses, with Ukrainian militants losing up to 590 personnel;

◻️ Russian air defense systems destroyed three ATACMS missiles and five HIMARS rockets;

◻️ Ukrainian losses in the Russian Vostok Battlegroup's combat zone amounted to up to 120 militants;

◻️ Ukrainian losses in the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup's combat zone exceeded 420 militants; the list of lost tanks includes a German Leopard tank;

◻️ Ukraine lost up to 410 militants in the Russian Zapad Battlegroup's combat zone;

◻️ Combat operations by the Russian Dnepr Battlegroup resulted in up to 80 militants eliminated and a field ammunition depot destroyed.

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Slapping tariffs on Chinese EVs is a hypocritical move from ‘trade protectionist’ EU – analyst

It's “definitely hypocritical” on the part of the European Union to accuse countries like China of subsidizing their companies when many EU nations are “very trade protectionist” themselves, Thomas W. Pauken II, geopolitical commentator and consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs, told Sputnik.

He noted that “France, Germany, all of these countries do the same exact thing they're accusing China of. So it's really strange and odd that they would use these accusations against China as a reason to increase tariffs [on EVs].”

Those Chinese companies that “apparently thought that EU was a good market for them” will be impacted initially by the tariffs of up to 45% on their electric vehicles announced by the European Commission on Friday, the geopolitical analyst believes.

However, the move will prompt Chinese companies to rethink their long-term business strategy.

“Instead of focusing on Europe and the US, they're probably just going to focus more on consumers in China and in Southeast Asia and elsewhere,” the pundit underscored, adding that the Middle East is becoming a bigger player, too.

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🎥🎥 Lavrov attends CIS Council of Foreign Ministers plenary session

👉Watch the livestream here or follow the link to the Sputnik's website

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❗️Ukraine's total losses have exceeded 21,000 servicemen in the fighting in the Kursk Region, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed.

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❗️ US intelligence has been passing information to Ukraine for strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure since the very beginning of the conflict, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said.

The US and NATO are actively condoning Ukraine's criminal policy and bear no less responsibility for the deaths of the population and destruction of Russian infrastructure, said Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

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Sergey Lavrov: Ukraine and its puppeteers play with fire, restoring peace is not part of their plan

Restoring peace is not part of Ukraine’s plan, while its Western patrons continue “playing with fire,” oblivious of the dangerous consequences, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the US magazine Newsweek.

“Zelensky has not revoked his decree banning negotiations with Moscow. Washington and its NATO allies provide political, military and financial support to Kiev so that the war would go on. They are discussing authorizing the AFU to use Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory,” Lavrov explained.

Russia’s top diplomat emphasized that the February 2014 agreement was ripped up by the US-backed opposition, then the Minsk accords were sabotaged and subsequently revealed to have never been fulfilled by Ukraine’s patrons, and finally the 2022 Istanbul agreements were “not signed by Zelensky at the insistence of his Western supervisors, in particular, the then British prime minister [Boris Johnson].”

Lavrov reiterated the prerequisites for a settlement listed by Russian President Vladimir Putin:

▪️ complete withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the DPR, LPR, and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions
▪️ recognition of territorial realities as enshrined in the Russian constitution
▪️ neutral, non-bloc, non-nuclear status for Ukraine; its demilitarization and de-Nazification
▪️ securing the rights, freedoms, and interests of Russian-speaking citizens
▪️ removal of all sanctions against Russia.

Since Ukraine’s Western patrons seek to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, “we have no choice but to continue our special military operation until the threats posed by Ukraine are removed,” Lavrov stressed, adding that Russia “will take adequate decisions based on [its] understanding of the threats posed by the West.”

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Sergey Lavrov: While West seeks dominance, UN charter’s peace ideals remain a ‘dead letter’

Russia believes all states, including the US, “should comply with their obligations on an equal basis with others rather than disguise their legal nihilism with mantras of their exceptionality,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underscored in his interview with the US magazine Newsweek.

“As long as the West continues seeking dominance, the ideals of peace set forth in the Charter of the United Nations will remain a dead letter,” he said, adding that the UN should remain “a forum for aligning the interests of all the countries.”

“Here we are supported by the majority of countries, which see how international law is violated with complete impunity in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, just the way it had earlier been violated in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and many other places,” the Russian FM said.

Weighing in on the ongoing shift towards a multipolar world order, Lavrov described it as “a natural part of power rebalancing, which reflects objective changes in the world economy, finance and geopolitics,” noting that the West “has also started to realize that this process is irreversible.”

New centers of decision-making are gaining strength in the Global South and East, with regional associations such as BRICS, the SCO, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), African Union, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and others, which “support mutually beneficial cooperation and respect for each other's interests,” Lavrov emphasized.

Weighing in on the potential outcome of the 2024 US presidential election, Lavrov noted that both the Democrats and Republicans “have reached a consensus as to countering Russia.” The Russian FM advised any future White House resident “to mind their domestic business, rather than look for adventures tens of thousands of miles away from American coasts.”

“At all events, we will promote Russia's interests decisively, especially as far as its national security is concerned,” Lavrov said.

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❗️Ukraine has lost more than 21,000 militants in the Kursk region since the start of combat operations, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated.

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🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian Ministry of Defense regarding the military situation in the Kursk region:

◻️ Russian Battlegroup Sever repelled two enemy counterattacks in the direction of the settlements of Kremennaya and Plekhovo, and disrupted attempts to strike in the direction of Lyubimovka and Russkoye Porechnoye.

As a result, Ukraine lost up to 30 militants killed or wounded, along with an armored combat vehicle and a car.

◻️ Over the past day, Ukrainian losses amounted to over 150 militants, with three armored combat vehicles, two artillery pieces, four mortars, and two cars destroyed.

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❗️According to information from the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the plan of the terrorist attack on the Kursk region included the seizure and mining of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin stated.

Had Ukraine succeeded in capturing it, Europe would have faced an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl, he added.

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New Israeli strike

The Israeli army has carried out another strike in the southern suburb of Beirut, known as Dahieh. This targeted area is situated near the international airport.

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❗️Key statements by Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR):

Global affairs:

◻️ Risks and threats from Western countries have significantly increased, although Russia has never wished them any harm.

◻️ In an attempt to maintain aggressive dominance in the modern world, Western countries are focusing their efforts on the post-Soviet space.

◻️ Russia is currently facing an unprecedented terrorist threat emanating from a group of states.

Ukraine:

◻️ Ukraine and its Western handlers have launched a full-scale terrorist war against Russia and its people.

◻️ Unable to achieve strategic success, the Zelensky regime is carrying out terrorist attacks in Russia to destabilize society.

◻️ The US and NATO are actively supporting the Kiev’s criminal actions and bear equal responsibility for the loss of life and destruction of Russian infrastructure.

◻️ According to SVR data, US intelligence has been providing Kiev with information for strikes on Russian civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the conflict.

◻️ US reconnaissance satellites have significantly increased high-resolution surveillance over Russian territories bordering Ukraine since March 2024.

◻️ US satellites have been particularly focused on monitoring the situation in the Kursk and Belgorod regions.

◻️ The SVR has information that the plan of the terrorist attack on the Kursk region included the seizure and mining of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.

◻️ If Kiev had succeeded in capturing the Kursk Nuclear Plant, Europe would have faced an environmental and humanitarian disaster comparable to Chernobyl.

◻️ SVR data indicates that Western intelligence services, particularly Britain’s MI6, have been preparing Ukrainian sabotage groups for provocations at several nuclear power plants in Russia.

◻️ MI6 and Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR) have been developing a plan to sabotage power lines connecting Russian nuclear power plants to the national energy grid.

◻️ Reliable data shows that NATO intelligence services are transferring militants from the Middle East to the special military operation (SMO) zone to fight on Kiev’s side.

◻️ The SVR has recorded numerous contacts in Syria between Ukrainian GUR emissaries and leaders of illegal armed groups and terrorist organizations.

◻️ Kiev’s goal in contacting terrorist leaders in Syria is to carry out sabotage operations and attacks on Russian targets in Syria and to recruit mercenaries for Ukraine's forces.

◻️ As "payment" for the militants, Kiev is supplying terrorists with combat and reconnaissance drones as well as ammunition.

◻️ Since July 2024, a group of Ukrainian GUR officers has been stationed at the US Al-Tanf base, working on plans to attack Russian and Syrian military targets.

◻️ US and British intelligence services are facilitating Kiev’s negotiations with militants in Syria, with the silent approval of Turkiye’s occupation administration in Idlib.

◻️ There is information suggesting that after the Ukraine conflict ends, these militants are expected to be used to destabilize the Eurasia region.

◻️ By fueling the Kiev regime with jihadists and weapons, the US and Britain are steadily on the path to becoming state sponsors of terrorism.

◻️ The US and Britain will be held accountable for arming the Kiev regime with jihadists and weapons.

Nord stream

◻️ The course of the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions offers little hope that the true culprits will be identified and punished.

◻️ The SVR has reliable information about the direct involvement of the US and Britain in the Nord Stream blasts.

◻️ Data shows that professional saboteurs from Anglo-Saxon intelligence services were involved in the Nord Stream explosions.

◻️ The US administration considered it justified to destroy Nord Stream to ensure that Europe, especially Germany, breaks away from Russia.

◻️ The US was unsure whether they could convince Europe to abandon the highly beneficial Nord Stream project, so they resorted to sabotage.

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NYT plays age card against Trump, but calls Biden's gaffes 'late style' mastery

The New York Times has eagerly dusted off the “age concerns” narrative binned by the media when Joe Biden quit the presidential race to retarget it at Donald Trump.

The newspaper claims his speeches “reignite the question of age.” The NYT took the time to review the ex-president’s public appearances over the years saying Trump's speeches have “grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused.”

◻️ However, back in February, the same NYT was furious when just “Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024.” The outlet ran with this headline after a report from special counsel Robert K. Hur (who investigated the president’s handling of classified documents) referred to Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

Republicans were immediately slammed for casting doubts on Biden’s mental acuity merely over “an uneven White House appearance” and the cutting words used by Hur.

◻️ The NYT had no problem quaintly referring to 81-year-old Joe Biden’s age as his “late style” in a March story. Defining it as the way “artists, at the end of their careers, enter a new and distinctive phase of creativity,” the outlet waxed poetic as it likened the increasingly rambling and forgetful Biden to Richard Wagner, Shakespeare, Henry James, Martin Scorsese, and Bob Dylan.

◻️ In June, the NYT accused Biden’s many adversaries of pushing a “distorted, online version” of him, a “product of often misleading videos” that play into concerns about his age and abilities.

◻️ “Armchair gerontologists” were slammed for swooping in on a “minor gaffe, like bungling a single sentence” and dissecting it as “possible evidence of decline” in another summer article.

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Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov announced that the Taliban* movement is expected to be removed from Russia's list of terrorist organizations in the near future. He added that efforts toward this goal are already in progress.

*The Taliban is currently under UN sanctions for its terrorist activities.

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Unprecedented scale, duration of Israel-Hamas War could easily escalate into ‘mini world war’ – observer

“The earlier wars [in the Middle East] were shorter in duration, the physical destruction was less and the death toll was less than the current war. In the current war, Gaza has been totally destroyed,” political analyst Dr. Hossein Askari told Sputnik on the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas War Monday.

Listing off the immense casualties of the current war, including some 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, as local authorities reported, Askari suggested the true death toll may be much higher, accounting for those still buried in the rubble and unaccounted for, or suffering from lack of food or medical care. Then there are the 1,200+ deaths on the Israeli side, and the growing death toll in Lebanon amid Israel’s escalating conflict with Hezbollah, he noted.

“This war has been enabled and financed by the US. The US has stood by and supplied Israel’s war machine,” the academic said, adding that unfortunately for the Palestinians, many regional leaders “are all too dependent on the US for their existence and have no appetite for opposing Israel’s brutal rule and carnage,” unless forced to do so by domestic upheavals.

Characterizing the conflict in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as an unabashed Israeli land grab attempt, Askari stressed that the war could easily escalate into a “much more global war if Israel attacks Iranian infrastructure, especially its oil facilities,” which could prompt Iran to target oil facilities in Gulf countries where the US has a military presence. “It could become a mess, a total regional war, if not a mini world war,” the observer said.

“America talks peace but in the same breath supplies lethal weapons, money and political support to Israel to continue its carnage and land grab,” Askari said as he expects the conflict to continue for as long as PM Netanyahu continues to feel he can do anything he wants and continue to receive US backing.

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Friendly fire: How Israel killed its own soldiers and civilians on October 7

Monday marks the one-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led incursion into Israel – which became the deadliest single day in the Jewish State’s history, and the harbinger of the deadliest year for Palestinians since 1948.

Some 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed in the October 7 violence, among them 815 civilians. 251 others were taken hostage and shipped off to Gaza as bargaining chips.

🔸 However, subsequent investigations, including a probe by the Israeli army cited by Israeli media in June revealed “multiple incidents” of Israeli troops “firing on our own forces on October 7-9.”

🔸 The same month, a UN report revealed that at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed intentionally by their own side on October 7 as the IDF implemented the so-called Hannibal Directive – a controversial order instructing military personnel to liquidate their own comrades to prevent them from being captured.

🔸 In April, Israel’s military acknowledged publicly that one hostage was killed by Israeli helicopter fire on October 7 during a Hamas attempt to take her hostage.

🔸 In July, a Haaretz investigation based on soldier testimony revealed the Hannibal Directive was used, with a Hermes 450 drone dispatched to prevent any vehicles from returning to Gaza and to turn the border into a “killing zone.” The IDF attacked a house in Be’eri kibbutz, killing 13 of 14 hostages. Western media continues to depict Be’eri as a symbol of Hamas’ brutality, omitting mention of the Hannibal Directive.

🔸 In Sderot, Hamas militants took over a police station. Israeli forces used tank fire to eliminate both the militants and captives, and began demolishing the station that same day.

🔸 A November 2023 Haaretz report, citing a police investigation, revealed that an IDF gunship from Ramat David airbase may have killed Israeli civilians at the Supernova music festival in Re’im while targeting Hamas militants. ABC News corroborated that "panicked" Israeli aircrews fired on vehicles containing hostages at the festival, where over 360 people died and 40 were taken hostage.

🔸 In December 2023, the IDF confirmed that 20 of 105 troops killed in the first two months died from friendly fire and “accidents” related to “weaponry, machinery, trampling” and “firing irregularities.”

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Gaza hybrid war signals that ‘war is now in the buildings that people used to live in’ – security expert

💬 “From the 1980s, there’s been a new concept in our lives which is non-state actors…We have very organized, [well] armed non-state actors that have a chain of command, that have mobilization, that have manpower, almost acting as a national army,” Furkan Halit Yolcu, security expert and researcher at Turkiye’s Sakarya University’s Middle East Institute, told Sputnik, commenting on the changing face of modern conflicts in the Middle East region.

“Before that we had interstate wars where two or more states were having conflict zones, having clashes, raiding borders,” etc. Today, “it’s a bit more severe since we don’t have war fronts anymore and wars are now urbanized. War is now in the cities. War is now in the buildings that people used to live in. It’s become more severe,” Yolcu said.

Israel, which “has been trying to enlarge and broaden its borders,” now faces organized non-state adversaries from the likes of Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, some armed with modern anti-tank weapons, air defense systems and missiles and receiving support from the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.

💬 “In terms of tactical and military aspects… Israel’s war with Hamas… is still a local issue. At most, it’s a regional crisis,” Yolcu said.

“The aim is clear- Israel has decided on annihilating Gaza, annihilating Palestine… So the next step is then attacking Jordan, attacking Syria and attacking Lebanon. [Israel’s adversaries] see that even if they sacrifice Gaza and the West Bank, it’s not going to be enough for Israel. That’s why they have decided… to stand against Israel...”

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Emmanuel Macron – Rothschilds protégé turned French president? Part 1 👉 Part 2

French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been nicknamed a "president of the rich," has given a nod to tax increases on wealthy individuals and big companies. The New York Times says the president "has vociferously opposed tax increases," but French PM Michel Barnier said there is no other choice for solving France’s widening budget deficit problem.

How did Macron earn his nickname and how is he linked to the famous Rothschild banking family?

◻️ Emmanuel Macron had worked as an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque between 2008 and 2012. Recruited at the end of 2008, Macron was promoted to a partner with the bank in 2010.

Macron earned about €2.9 million while working for the Rothschilds, according to Financial Times.

◻️ During his 2017 presidential campaign Macron was castigated as the "candidate of finance". He ran as an independent candidate with a newly assembled party, but managed to quickly raise €13 million. The funds were primarily sourced from a powerful network of bankers, financiers and businessmen, according to Mediapart, an independent French investigative media.

French laws allowed the Macron campaign to keep the list of his donors on the hush.

◻️ When assuming office, Macron carried out a string of measures for the rich and companies. He reduced the official corporate tax rate to 25% from 33%, slashed taxes for manufacturers, introduced a flat tax of 30% on investment income; and replaced a wealth tax on very rich with a tax on real estate assets valued at more than 1.3 million euros.

However, the tax increase measure, which could bring around €10 billion annually, according to French think tank Terra Nova, is a temporary measure one. The French government needs to find €110 billion over next several years and most of the sum would be in form of slashing government spending, according to NYT.

👉 Part 2

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